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Unplanned Parenthood
Unplanned Parenthood is a 7th season episode of House which first aired on October 18, 2010. A newborn baby is in deep distress and nothing the neo-natal intensive care unit does seems to help. However, when the baby’s health cycles from better to worse, the team starts to realize that the real problem may be elsewhere. Meanwhile, House’s first attempt to babysit Rachel Cuddy turns into a disaster when it appears that his negligence places Rachel’s health at risk, and he must monitor her constantly to insure Cuddy doesn’t find out about it. The hunt for Thirteen’s replacement continues with House rejecting Foreman’s choice out of hand just to make sure Foreman’s authority is only illusory. When the task of hiring a replacement falls to Taub, he tries to manipulate the master manipulator to try to convince House it was his idea to hire a new pediatrician. Recap A woman in labor is just about to give birth. The newborn appears and the attending nurse tells them to get the emergency team because the baby is hypoxic. More and more doctors come into the room and they ask the woman’s daughter to turn off the video camera. House comes in and tells the team they have to stay late. He tells them the patient is only eight hours old and has problems with her lungs and liver. Cuddy comes in and tells House they have to speak in private. They go into his office and she tells him that he needs him to babysit Rachel. House wants to stay and treat the baby, but Cuddy reminds him about his promise to get a woman to fill in for Thirteen. House figures he will get more sex out of it and agrees to drop by at 7 p.m. House goes back to his team and tells them to treat the liver. He tells Foreman to stay behind. He apologizes for letting Chase be the first to try Thirteen’s replacement. Foreman is ahead of him and has been interviewing all week - he has two candidates. House goes to Cuddy’s house, but Cuddy keeps calling back to check in on Rachel. House pretends to check. Cuddy hangs up and he goes to the kitchen looking for more food. He drinks orange juice from the bottle, then finds Rachel standing in the kitchen. She says she’s thirsty and asks for juice. House tells her to go back to bed. House calls Wilson to join him. Taub is doing an ultrasound. It doesn’t look like an abcess, but dilated bile ducts. They call House who is trying to lull Rachel to sleep. Foreman tries to introduce the new fellow, Dr. Christina Fraser. House fires her. They’re incredulous, but House is doing it to just put Foreman in his place. House gives Taub the opportunity to hire someone. House wants to perform surgery to correct the problem with the bile ducts despite the fact she has a bleeding disorder as well. Wilson arrives with food. House says he’s leaving. Wilson goes to stop him and threatens to leave. House thinks he’s bluffing and leaves. Wilson chases him, leaving Rachel alone. Wilson starts his car. House starts his motorcycle. Wilson threatens to go back in and hire a babysitter, then call Cuddy. They both agree to stay. However, they return to find Rachel has trashed the living room. She also has something in her mouth - a quarter. They perform surgery on the newborn. Taub’s candidate for the fellowship, Dr. Cheng, makes an excellent suggestion to bring the patient’s blood pressure back up - epinephrine. It works and they continue. However they can’t find any obstruction, but the patient’s blood pressure keeps dropping and they have to stop. They leave surgery and discuss the blood pressure problem. They come up with a treatment plan to treat the malformed blood vessels and call House for approval. Chase tells Taub to forget about Dr. Cheng - House will shoot down anyone they propose because he doesn’t want to hire anyone. Taub suggests getting House to think it’s his idea. They can’t reach House, so Foreman decides to start the treatment. House is wondering why Rachel opened up a bag of Chinese food just to go at the coins. Wilson figures out how much change was in the bag and a dime is missing. House has been using a fridge magnet to look for the coin, but Wilson reminds him that American dimes aren’t ferromagnetic. House figures it will just pass, but Wilson realizes it might cause an obstruction and kill her. Wilson says they have to tell Cuddy, but House is dead set against it. When Wilson threatens to tell, House tries to blackmail him. Wilson tells him he has to either monitor Rachel or tell Cuddy, then ducks out through the window. Cuddy arrives home and House tells her Rachel was fine except she woke up once. House offers to stay the night. The mother discusses her relationship with her older daughter with Taub. Taub notices the baby is more pink and is now making sounds. He lets the mother hold her as the older daughter returns. Taub finds Dr. Cheng and tells her that the newborn probably just had a blood vessel malformation. Cheng proceeds with an x-ray on her patient. He talks to her about the job with House and she’s enthusiastic. House is lying awake. When he hears Rachel make a noise, he’s up like a shot and tells Cuddy he will take care of it. He checks Rachel’s diaper, but there’s no coin. Cuddy is standing there asking if everything is okay. He says everything is fine and Cuddy goes back to bed. In the morning, Cuddy gets ready for work, but House says he’s going to sleep in because his case at the hospital is under control. The nanny arrives and House gets a call from his team. They tell him to check his messages - they didn’t do the surgery. However, Taub gives Cheng the credit for spotting the vascular malformation. However, House doesn’t think that’s the whole story and calls Dr. Cheng an idiot. Taub tries to blame Foreman, who tells House that they treated her for it, and she got better. House figures she’s going to crash again and tells them to call him back when she does. The mother is cradling the baby and talks to her older daughter, who thinks she’s treating the baby better than she treated her growing up. The mother thinks the baby has just wet itself, but instead they find she is bleeding again. Meanwhile, House and Wilson bring a sleeping Rachel to the hospital. She wakes up just as they start the ultrasound. Taub calls House, who has to step away from the ultrasound machine because it’s interfering with his cell phone. He grabs a land line instead. Taub tell him about the bleeding, but Wilson distracts him to show him the dime on the ultrasound. As they argue about whether to do an x-ray to confirm, Taub pounds on the door of the exam room. House finally goes out to meet him and tells him that Wilson has a patient in a lot of pain. Rachel starts laughing and House says Wilson’s bedside manner is that good. House tells him to focus on why she got better, then worse. He backs into the room to see Rachel again. Luckily, the dime is in the large intestine and the danger is likely over. House thinks of something about his other patient, finds Taub outside the door, and tells him to do a direct blood transfusion between the mother and patient. The patient improves markedly. They realize the original transfusion they gave the patient from the mother is why she got better, but House still has no idea why the baby has improved. Taub calls over Dr. Cheng to help with the differential. House thinks she’s not going to help, but she helps House realize that the mother’s blood either has something special in it, or it’s just regular blood and the baby has a deficiency. House decides to try Taub as the next donor to see if that works. House tells Cheng to come with him. She confirms she’s interested in the fellowship. House gives her a test - Rachel’s case. She suggests going in with a scope to remove the obstruction. House tells her it’s Taub’s decision if she gets the job. House finds Wilson and Rachel in the men’s room. House tells Wilson about the scope idea. Wilson says it’s too dangerous, but House argues the dime is dangerous too. They try to figure out how to get the opportunity without Cuddy finding out. Finally, House asks for Wilson’s dosimeter. He takes it and exposes it to large amounts of ultraviolet light and then scrapes Wilson’s identification off of it. Taub’s blood isn’t helping, so they figure that the baby has an infection and the mother has antibodies to fight it. The mother says she had another baby so late in life to have the opportunity to be a special mother. The dosimeter is handed in and alerts radiology that there might be a radiation leak. Cuddy comes in to tell House about the problem. Because House has scratched off Wilson’s name, they can’t trace it to him. She says she has to work late, and House “reluctantly” agrees to take care of Rachel again. They take a biopsy of the baby’s liver and find a melanoma. The mother has inadvertently given her baby cancer. Taub examines the mother and finds the melanoma under the nail of her index finger. However, House is more concerned about why the mother, who must have late stage cancer that has metastasized, seems so healthy. Foreman knows the answer too - something in the mother’s immune system is fighting something else and the melanoma is being affected as well. Those antibodies also fought the melanoma in the baby. Since autoimmune diseases can have that effect, House orders tests. The mother is blaming herself for making the baby sick. The older daughter wonders what it could be if it isn’t an autoimmune disease, but Taub is evasive. The older daughter apologizes for the things she said to her mother earlier. She admits to being jealous, and tells her she was a great mom. All the tests are coming out negative. Cheng tells Taub that House is okay with hiring her, but left the decision up to him. Taub thinks he’s being set up. Cheng agrees with him. They rule out autoimmune and start looking for infections that cause granulomas. Wilson is on “poop watch”, but has had no luck. House says it’s time for the scope and gets the equipment for it. The scans for granulomas are coming out negative. Foreman tells Taub to stop over thinking the matter and tells him that Cheng seems to be the only candidate they’ve picked that House cares about. As they continue the scans, they also find out the mother has lung cancer too. They break the news to the mother. Ironically, the immune response to the lung cancer suppressed the melanoma, which is why she didn’t show symptoms. It also explained why the baby got better during the transfusion. She needs surgery and chemotherapy, but the baby only needs chemotherapy. The mother wants to continue the transfusions, but they won’t work after the surgery. The mother wants to put off the surgery. Dr. Foreman says the cancer is unlikely to spread, but clots could form. The mother insists on waiting the eight or nine days it will take to treat the baby. The older daughter objects and thinks the mother is only doing it because she feels guilty about the way she raised her. However, the mother insists. House shows up with more Chinese food and complains they left out his pancakes. They realize the previous night’s order may have been screwed up as well. When they calculate the amount, there is no missing change and they realize that Rachel didn’t have access to an extra dime. They realize the “dime” on the ultrasound was only air, like House thought. They sit down for dinner. The daughter arrives in the room to find the mother unconscious. She calls for help. However, the mother has passed away from a pulmonary embolism, caused by the clotting Foreman was afraid about. They realize that they will be able to harvest her blood to treat the baby. Taub offers Cheng the job, but she turns him down - she tells Taub he’s an ass just like House, acting like a paranoid kid. Foreman finds the older daughter with her newborn sister, telling her about her mother. House and Cuddy are sleeping. Rachel’s baby monitor wakes them up and House tells Cuddy it’s her turn. She removes Rachel’s diaper and finds a dime. When she asks Rachel how she got it, Rachel says “House”. Major Events *House babysits Rachel Cuddy for the first time. *While on House’s watch, Rachel swallows a dime. He and Wilson try to get it out, but later figure she never swallowed it. However, Rachel eventually poops it out, Cuddy finds it in her diaper, and Rachel blames House. *Foreman hires a new female fellow, who House summarily dismisses to teach Foreman a lesson. *Taub pursues Dr. Cheng to be the new female fellow, but she feels she can’t work with Taub because he’s too immature. *Taub's blood type is revealed to be O-. Zebra Factor 5/10 Melanoma is a fairly rare cancer, but it is common in Caucasians of the patient’s age. End Credits Message Trivia & Cultural References *The title is a play on the organization Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides reproductive healthcare and educates people about contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, reproductive health, and children’s health care. *House’s nicknames for his team this week are Jew (Taub), Black (Foreman) and Croc Hunter (Chase). *In Greek mythology, the Medusa was a woman with hair made of snakes who turned people who looked at her directly into stone. *Operation Valkyrie was the operational plan for maintaining order in Germany during World War II in the event of civilian unrest. However, the plotters of the assassination of Adolf Hitler adapted the plan to take over control of the country from other leading Nazis and the SS after the assassination. *For being such smart men, House and Wilson don't realize that two pancakes totalling $1.10 would not add an additional dime to the cost - rather, it would add $1.10 + tax. Cast *Hugh Laurie as Gregory House *Lisa Edelstein as Lisa Cuddy *Omar Epps as Eric Foreman *Robert Sean Leonard as James Wilson *Peter Jacobson as Chris Taub *Jesse Spencer as Robert Chase *Olivia Wilde as Remy Hadley (credit only) *Jennifer Grey as Abbey *Gabrielle Christian as Justine *Keiko Agena as Dr. Cheng *Vernee Watson-Johnson as Nurse Smits *Charlene Amoia as Dr. Christina Fraser *Vanessa Waters as Dr. Taylor *Felix Avitia as Crying Boy *The Colbert Sisters as Rachel Cuddy *Bobbin Bergstrom as Nurse *Abbey's baby Links *Episode article at Wikipedia *Episode summary at TV.com *Episode page at IMDB *Episode recap at Starpulse *Episode page at TV Rage *Episode recap at Televison Without Pity *Episode review at Blogcritics *A review of the medicine at Polite Dissent *Episode review at TV Fanatic *Episode review at Screencrave *Episode page at House MD Guide *Episode review at Buddy TV *Episode transcript at Clinic Duty *A list of the music tracks at Tunefind *Promo page at The House of Fan References Video Category:Episodes Category:Season 7 Category:Episodes ending in the patient's death